Today, Respawn Entertainment laid out its core focus in 2025 for its hit free-to-play FPS Apex Legends. The first official dev update of the year was all about continuing to improve upon two important areas for the game: anti-cheat and matchmaking.
For anti-cheat, the developers aid they’ve been able to recently take action against ~1,200 accounts across all platforms and remove ~17.4 million ranked points. A brand new machine-learning model has also been introduced to help combat botting, and a report feedback feature is being investigated to help provide additional insight into reports.
Matchmaking-wise, fans can expect Unranked Skill Display, seeding skill values, and lessening Ranked resets to be implemented in the near future. Players should also keep an eye out for new tests to help with preferential matchmaking and queue time adjustments, as it is just one of the many ongoing discussions Respawn is having regarding balancing the game properly.
Apex Legends was originally released back in 2019 as a surprise battle royale hero-shooter spin-off – albeit loosely tied – to Respawn’s Titanfall series. The game was one of the many releases around that time that was trying to capitalize on the battle royale craze set off by Fortnite two years earlier, and it managed to do just that.
By the end of its first week, Apex Legends had surpassed 25 million players and 50 million within its first month. By April 2021, it had approximately 100 million players, making it one of the most-played video games of all time by player count.
And while the player count and fever surrounding the game has dwindled a bit since then, Respawn’s take on the battle royale genre is still alive and kicking today. Alongside participating in the upcoming Esports World Cup event, a brand new update, From the Rift, was released just a few months ago, meaning fans won’t have to worry about the game being abandoned anytime soon.
Apex Legend is available now as a free-to-play title on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (EA App, Epic Game Store & Steam).
